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How Google Maps offers me an alternate route that is longer, slower, eats more fuel, and has tolls on it for some reason
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this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2026
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Would it be a surprise? How would it gather traffic data if they don't send a few cars down an unpopular path? Not saying it is right.
I stopped trusting it when I drove to north Carolina and it had me get off 40 to take some backwater road that went through several small towns and actually made the trip longer and used more fuel.
It tried to do it on the same route a different day. I ignored it and the trip time decreased by 20 min when I skipped that part of the route and just stayed on 40.
If there's no cars there, there's no traffic data to collect. If there are already cars there, just use their data. Google doesn't just use maps to gather it. There's not much point in sending someone on an arbitrary detour for the hell of it.
Google does seem to often overestimate the practicality of the more rural routes, often pretending you can always stick to the speed limit there when the actual road would not be safe at those speeds. Plus more crossings, bends etc... slowing you down. Or maybe that day Google figured there was a traffic jam on 40.